London & South East (LaSE) Pharmacy Early Careers
Programme 2021-2023

Background

In 2020, the landscape of early years pharmacist training was changing dramatically, most notably The NHS People Plan cited the transformation in early careers pharmacy education and training as being critical in the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan.

To assist the region, implement the changes required and support successful delivery of Initial Education and Training Reform for Pharmacists (IETP) reforms, HEE London & South East (LaSE) developed the Early Careers Programme and Early Careers Training Programme Director (EC TPD) roles, in collaboration with NHS Partners, to provide HEE ‘on the ground’ support at individual Integrated Care Systems (ICS) level.

This programme of work ran from Jan 2021 to March 2023. The EC TPDs were supported by the Associate Head of Pharmacy and the Early Careers Steering Group, which consisted of stakeholders from different sectors across London and the South East.

The scope of work for the EC TPDs was to:

1

Support IETP changes and early careers reforms by engaging with and assisting EPDs, clinical supervisors, organisations and ICS workforce leads.

2

Developing education and training networks and communities of practices across all pharmacy sectors, facilitate opportunities for providers to engage with peers, share areas of innovation and work collaboratively.

3

Engage with ICS Workforce workstreams and Training hub leads to support innovation in early careers pharmacist training to meet workforce needs and service requirements.

4

Act as a point of contact for the ICS to ensure early escalation of concerns, issues, or risks to HEE LaSE Team.

5

Lead and/or support HEE early careers workstreams and projects at regional and national level to support implementation of the IETP reform.

The EC TPDs included: Sureena Clement, Alice Conway, Ritienne Fenech, Jennifer Guffie, Lauren Reber, Maria Staines, Trishna Patel and Zena Uppal.

Key Areas of Work

Early Careers Training Programme Directors workstreams 2021-2023. Detailed reports are available at the bottom of the page.

a)

Designated Prescribing Practitioner Strategy

1

Scoping and gaining an understanding of the current pharmacist independent prescribing (IP) and Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP) workforce.

2

Scoping differences in independent prescribing course providers DPP application requirements as a barrier to becoming a DPP.

3

Delivering webinars and engagement to support pharmacists undertaking DPP roles.

b)

Pharmacist Multi-sector Training

1

Foundation Training Year Pharmacist Multi-sector Placements Resources to enable organisations to more easily implement cross-sector training.

2

Pilot Sussex ICS integrated TP training programme model to deliver training and support to cross-sector placements.

c)

Mentoring Infrastructure Development

1

Mentoring Resources and models of good practice to support organisations to implement mentoring.

2

Pilot mentoring model of experienced IPs with less experienced IPs.

d)

Educational Infrastructure scoping to understand models of educational supervision in acute trusts.

e)

Developing On-call workforce training module and identifying training gaps for on call service delivery.

6.

Stakeholder engagement at ICS, training hub and sector level to inform HEE early careers work.

1

Developed Early Careers Steering Group meetings to support engagement with ICS and sector workforce leads and enable ‘on the ground’ and ICS pharmacist workforce priorities feedback from stakeholders.

7.

Foundation Training Year Pharmacist Workforce Landscape 2021-22

1

Scoping to understand the foundation year trainee pharmacists’ workforce, and supervision infrastructure.

8.

London & South East region Mental Health Education Programme Directors Network focused on delivering GPhC’s initial education and training standards within mental health.

1

Mental health EPD Moodle zone.

2

New trainee pharmacist mental health based suggested activities.

EC TPD workstreams image

Programme Outputs

The following tables summarise the key workstreams and outputs from the Early Careers Programme for 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Resources

The following resources were developed as part of the EC programme of work:

Foundation Training Year Short Duration (Taster) Placement Resources are available here

HEE Acute Sector Oncall Training Module available through e-learning for health available here

HEE LaSE region Designated Prescribing Pharmacist (DPP) Webinar recording, slides and transcript available here

Sussex ICS-wide Integrated Trainee Pharmacist programmes cross-sector placement support pilot, further information available here

Key Reports & Recommendations

The reports below are key outputs from this workstream and capture the findings and recommendations to support systems and organisations to implement the IETP Reforms.

Early Careers Work – Publications

Publishing the outcomes of this work has been an integral part of this project to ensure that the knowledge gained is shared with stakeholders. A list of HEE LaSE Early Careers work publications is available through the word document below.